New Talent System Changes

Post by Kremesickle80

I would like to see everybody's input on this new talent system, if you think it needs to be changed please be polite and tone down the language on any comments and i will report to blizzard everyone's input. Personally i think they should be changed back to a system similar to the old one. This allows for much more diversity and character customization for everyone. The new system seems "childish" and too simple. This game was made for constant discoveries and should remain that way. Please post here! Thank you, Kremesickle-Black Dragonflight

Post by Adamsm

I love the new system; all of the 'no @#$% dumbass' talents are now automatically given to you.

Post by Kremesickle80

Is that really how you think of it? They have eliminated the option of diversity, now your character can have the same talents of 500,000 other characters, don't you want to be different from everyone else?

Post by ChairmanKaga

Personally i think they should be changed back to a system similar to the old one. This allows for much more diversity and character customization for everyone.

If you think the old system offered anything resembling diversity or customization, you are badly mistaken. Out of those 51 points you had, at least 49 were forced choices. You either rolled with the cookie cutter build from EJ, or you were a special-snowflake scrub undeserving of a raid spot.

The new system seems "childish" and too simple.

"Simple" and "interesting" are not mutually exclusive. I find the new talent tiers, with very few exceptions, to be far more engaging decision points than anything the old talent trees ever offered.

Post by Kremesickle80

Personally i think they should be changed back to a system similar to the old one. This allows for much more diversity and character customization for everyone.

If you think the old system offered anything resembling diversity or customization, you are badly mistaken. Out of those 51 points you had, at least 49 were forced choices. You either rolled with the cookie cutter build from EJ, or you were a special-snowflake scrub undeserving of a raid spot.

Enlighten me on these 49 "forced" choices, I have an 83 hunter and when I picked the talents I wanted to spend my points on, I felt like I had a choice on all of them.

Post by Adamsm

Is that really how you think of it? They have eliminated the option of diversity, now your character can have the same talents of 500,000 other characters, don't you want to be different from everyone else?

Horse pucky; all of the trees had specific talents you had to choose if you wanted your better spells or to maximize your spec. Also, as the endless upon endless cookie cutters showed, the so called diversity wasn't.

Enlighten me on these 49 "forced" choices, I have an 83 hunter and when I picked the talents I wanted to spend my points on, I felt like I had a choice on all of them.

You had to choose specific talents to get your special abilities. You had to choose specific talents to move on to the next level in the tree. You had completely and utterly useless talents that did nothing. See the Vanilla Trees, the BC Trees, the Wrath Trees and the Cata Trees for this.

Post by Kremesickle80

Then explain all the talent tree builds posted all over the internet...

Post by Azrile

Then explain all the talent tree builds posted all over the internet...

Except for very bad players, the difference between two people with the same spec came down to 2 or 3 talent points at most. those were usually meaningless talents. I played moonkin through every expansion but this one, and there were never more than 2 pts that I could change unless I really wanted to hurt my dps.

I would be willing to be that now, even world first guilds will have people with the same spec with different talents.

Post by Adamsm

Then explain all the talent tree builds posted all over the internet...

Right; and those builds were always exactly the same, with one or two talents changed to get the 'maximum' out of it.

Hell, look at the Vanilla Trees: Druids, you could be resto, since Feral and Boomkin were broken. Paladins you could be...oh look, holy since Protadin and Retadin didn't work. Warrior, hope you like to tank since you can't Arms or Fury. And so on and so forth; one tree out of three worked back then.

BC era, same %^&* different tune; there was one tree out of all of them that would give you the best of the best, and those trees were always set up the same.

Wrath: Hey look, it's still happening.

Cata: Still happening as people choose out of the possible trees 31 points and then stuck the other 5 in the same talents in the other trees.

Pandaria: All of those 'no $%^&' abilities(IE Titan's Grip, Spirit Wolves, Beastial Wrath etc etc) are learned as you level, so you don't have to worry about the no brainer stuff. And for the new talents, you can swap on the fly depending on the fight and actually play as you want; sure you can still cookie cutter, but that's up to you and only you if that's what you want.

Post by ChairmanKaga

If you think the old system offered anything resembling diversity or customization, you are badly mistaken. Out of those 51 points you had, at least 49 were forced choices. You either rolled with the cookie cutter build from EJ, or you were a special-snowflake scrub undeserving of a raid spot.

Enlighten me on these 49 "forced" choices, I have an 83 hunter and when I picked the talents I wanted to spend my points on, I felt like I had a choice on all of them.

Awwww, I think I know which group you fall into.

Post by Dragalthor

Whilst, yes, under the old system you could technically place points wherever you wanted, within the set rules of enough points to move to the next tier and (in Cata) enough points in that tree to open up another tree, if you didn't pick up the right points then you were gimping your DPS/Tank/Healing ability.

Again, whilst there were hundreds of different talent trees out there that people had posted to the net most of them were at best bad and at worst downright useless and most people, that knew about these things, would go and copy the cookie-cutter spec from EJ and then the only choice that people would have would be at best 4 or 5 points to place wherever they wanted. Those that didn't know that places such as EJ or Wowhead existed would be gently pointed in that direction and they too would end up with the cookie cutter.

I can understand those that miss the theory crafting behind the old talent trees and working out which talent point, placed where, would give them the advantage, but most of the player base, I'd guess, just weren't into the whole massive spreadsheet and hours of testing to find this out for themselves.

With more people wanting to experience dungeons and raids and enjoy the aspects of group play offered by the game a player who just picked his talents willy nilly would be a hindrance to the group and either kicked early in the run or nudged in the right direction as per para 2.

As it is we still have a whopping 729 different combinations of talents to try which is still a lot more than I'd guess most people will ever try.

Post by ChairmanKaga

Enlighten me on these 49 "forced" choices, I have an 83 hunter and when I picked the talents I wanted to spend my points on, I felt like I had a choice on all of them.

Okay, then. Just for fun, let's hop in the DeLorean and look back at Cataclysm 4.3 (41 points) Beast Mastery.

3 "free choice" points, but the only sensible choice is finishing off Bestial Discipline and Spirit Bond.

1/1 The Beast Within - Required point. Not taking the benefit of Bestial Wrath for yourself is fail.2/2 Invigoration - Required points. Not taking free focus on your pet crits is fail.

2 "free choice" points, but the only sensible choice left is 2/2 Kindred Spirits.

1/1 Beast Mastery - Required point. Does this even need to be explained?

So there's 31 points, out of which exactly zero are a truly free choice.

Now, sure, you could choose other skills at those "free choice" points, but doing so was to intentionally lower your own damage output. That is how you get kicked off of most raid teams. If you want to be "special" or "creative", don't expect to be a raid player at the same time. Raids demand every possible point of output that can be extracted from the game, and there was (with very few exceptions) only one way to get that from the old talent trees.

Not even going to bother covering the other trees to finish the 41 points. I think the point has been made.

Post by Entropyutd

Then explain all the talent tree builds posted all over the internet...

You had the illusion of choice.Sure you could use your points wherever in a specific talent tree until you unlocked another one, then use the left over points on lesser talents to eek out minor dps boosts.

But essentially each class and role had a cookie cutter build with a couple of optional choices which for the most part were situational.

You don't seem able to grasp that.. but imagine you want a cookie and the price is $1 Dollar, I offer you a fist full of bills of all different currencies and only 1 is a $1 Dollar bill, would you still think you had a choice?

Post by Strandvaskeren

I liked the diversity of the old system. Yes, to some degree you had to have "the build" to raid and I had that too, a spec optimized for raids, but I also had a build suited much more for my taste when not raiding.

I liked the option to pick and choose, going my own way of the "cookie cutter path" and making it work anyway.

What I don't miss are all the boneheads thinking only a certain spec worked, that was so tiresome. What people failed to grasp was that those optimal specs on EJ were often highly situational, fx. optimized for "best 30 second burst damage while standing completely still" or similar.

Post by ElhonnaDS

I like the new system better. I feel like there are real differences in play style based on which of my talents I choose, and I don't feel forced into an optimal spec nearly as much. I also played a hunter, and while I often stayed SV because of personal preference, even when other specs pulled out slightly ahead on the spreadsheets, I always had an optimal spec. There might have been a point or three of leeway, but if I wanted to play effectively, the spec was pretty much written on the wall. And the points I didn't have forced on me, usually were spent on PvP talents I didn't need for PvE, or talents I was less than thrilled about. If I wanted to PvP, that was a different spec, but still a specific one. I could have chosen others, but it would have made no sense to do as it would have just made me worse at whatever I was trying to do, and honestly wouldn't change the feel of the playstyle all that much.

Currently, I think that the few talents we do choose are all unique, they serve similar functions but in very different ways, and none seems to be so much more optimal than the others of its tier (other than perhaps silencing shot) that it seems a non-decision. I feel like I am actually making choices based on how I would like to play, and not choosing between being right and being wrong.

Post by lonewarrior

It was best in the days of hybrids when you could spec in multiple trees. Once Blizz forced you to spec out set points in your primary choice that went the way of the dodo. Now in PvE that matter very little except perhaps just to play around with during leveling, but in PvP it was actually the opposite.I had a rogue specifically made to have an endless burst of initial energy regen combined blade flurry(hit an additional target) and all the relevant poisons that would cut healing/casting and because of another spec also would apply a slowing movement, where I would pop out of stealth and spam fan of knives and practically bring a half dozen or more horde to a stand still, in pvp situations like BGs. It was my sole purpose, I really couldn't do anything else but flee...but it was pure gold watching these poor saps in slow motion being aoe slaughtered by hunters and mages.I stop playing my rogue when they took that away.

Post by ChairmanKaga

I liked the diversity of the old system. Yes, to some degree you had to have "the build" to raid and I had that too, a spec optimized for raids, but I also had a build suited much more for my taste when not raiding.

I liked the option to pick and choose, going my own way of the "cookie cutter path" and making it work anyway.

What I don't miss are all the boneheads thinking only a certain spec worked, that was so tiresome. What people failed to grasp was that those optimal specs on EJ were often highly situational, fx. optimized for "best 30 second burst damage while standing completely still" or similar.

I'll agree with that sentiment -- the old trees suffered from an enormous amount of groupthink, although in a lot of cases (see my previous post) it was accurate and warranted.

That, in turn, is why I like the new talents so much. These are much more personal choices as to your play style or what type of utility you want to bring to the group, and any that do affect DPS are generally of a sufficiently small epsilon to avoid major argument.

It has, in a way, brought back a modicum of skill. The divisions between grades of players are now entirely along lines of knowing one's class and spell priorities, and how one weaves their selected talents into that.

Post by cephadex

If you think the old system offered anything resembling diversity or customization, you are badly mistaken. Out of those 51 points you had, at least 49 were forced choices. You either rolled with the cookie cutter build from EJ, or you were a special-snowflake scrub undeserving of a raid spot.

I actually agree with this; I remember back when I used to select talents by carefully trying to reason them out based on my own understanding, and it worked fine through classic, then in TBC when I started raiding, people would look at my point distribution and go "huh? What weird hybrid is that?" I'd be asked if I'm holy or shadow, and I'd be like "I'm disco....?" and people would go, "what's that?"

In conclusion, then, there was the illusion of flexibility and choice, but in the end you ended up following what raid groups wanted you to follow (and maybe they were right and I just didn't figure out my million talent points logically on my own, haha).

Post by Strandvaskeren

It has, in a way, brought back a modicum of skill. The divisions between grades of players are now entirely along lines of knowing one's class and spell priorities, and how one weaves their selected talents into that.

It was always about skill over talents. People that sucked even with the "correct" talents back then still suck with the new system.

There is just something fundamentally wrong in having a talent tree that doesn't really do anything important. Imagine that they took it a step further and made talents only affect vanity stuff like your char's height and eye color, stuff like that. There would no longer be any debate on what to pick (great) but at the same time there would no longer be any way to individualize your style of play (sad, imho).

The talent tree, in my opinion, should be about making hard choices, tuning your char for your way of playing, sacrificing important talents in order to get other talents that are slightly more important.

Post by Azrile

It has, in a way, brought back a modicum of skill. The divisions between grades of players are now entirely along lines of knowing one's class and spell priorities, and how one weaves their selected talents into that.

It was always about skill over talents. People that sucked even with the "correct" talents back then still suck with the new system.

There is just something fundamentally wrong in having a talent tree that doesn't really do anything important. Imagine that they took it a step further and made talents only affect vanity stuff like your char's height and eye color, stuff like that. There would no longer be any debate on what to pick (great) but at the same time there would no longer be any way to individualize your style of play (sad, imho).

The talent tree, in my opinion, should be about making hard choices, tuning your char for your way of playing, sacrificing important talents in order to get other talents that are slightly more important.

Read your last paragraph again. That is the problem with the old system. There are just too many talented players who can do the math and figure out the best way to play and post it to EJ... so anytime you chose ýour way´ over that way, you were simply hurting your group. Also the last sentence makes no sense.. who wouldn´t sacrifice a talent to get a slightly more important talent.. that isn´t a choice unless you are brain-dead.

The devs did it right.. you have a choice

1. a 30% instant cast self-heal where you have to press a button2. a 40% self-heal that occurs over 6 seconds where you have to press a button3. A 20% self-heal that occurs automatically when you drop to 20% health

There is no wrong or right answer. Some really smart guys with sims and raid logs cannot figure out which is best..